REAL SPENDING REFORMS BETTER THAN SEQUESTRATION

While slowly gaining attention throughout our country, military communities in California like San Diego, as well as the military facilities in East Kern and the Antelope Valley that I proudly represent, are very aware of next Friday, March 1: The date when automatic cuts to our federal budget are scheduled to take effect. Known in Washington as “sequestration,” these cuts were conceptualized by the president and signed into law by the president in 2011. During this time, House Republicans were vehemently working to reduce the national debt of over $16 trillion through much needed entitlement reforms and cutting inefficient and duplicative government programs. Rather than working with Republicans on responsible measures at the time, the president moved forward with the same old stale ideas of more taxes, budget gimmicks, and fear.

What is shocking about the president’s remarks over the past month regarding sequestration is his refusal to take responsibility for the effects these automatic spending cuts will have on military readiness, the economy or job creation. My question to the president is simple: If you knew the consequences of these cuts, then why did you and your administration come up with the idea of the sequester, and demand it be included in the Budget Control Act of 2011 in the first place?

House Republicans have long understood the arbitrary nature of the president’s sequester and worked to fix this very imperfect solution to our country’s spending problem. Last year in the House, we passed two bills that targeted the president’s sequestration cuts that would negatively impact our national defense readiness and replaced them with responsible and common-sense cuts to government spending that most Americans would consider wasteful and reckless. For example our bill sought to eliminate a full-service TV production studio within the Internal Revenue Service that costs $4 million annually to operate, or the $115 billion in improper payments the federal government estimated it made in 2011 to individuals who didn’t even qualify for those benefits or payments. This would ensure that our national defense had the resources they need, while keeping the promise to concerned Americans all across our country that we need to continue to cut our national deficit. These bills were met with silence by the president and Senate Democrats.

With the sequestration deadline now approaching, the president is proposing to postpone his sequester for another two months, but only if we again raise taxes on hardworking Americans. It is unacceptable of our nation’s leaders to propose a fix to a problem they say will severely harm our economy and national defense with a plan that will again kick the can down the road and increase taxes.

The problem stems from Washington Democrats’ inability to come to terms with the fact that government spending is out of control. Last December, during fiscal cliff negotiations, the president told Speaker John Boehner that we do not have a spending problem. That denial was echoed by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi two weeks ago in a Fox News Sunday interview when she said, “It is almost a false wrong to say we have a spending problem.”